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The Character Assassination of Gary Webb · Conspiracy! The Show

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm Adam Todd Brown.
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  Speaker 2: anything anymore. That's that's you know, Yeah, that's the whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: It's a ball mey seventy five all the time where
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I live. Including is it right now? So we're talking
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: about a thing I teased at the end of the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: last Behold a Pale Horse episode? Yeah, we are talking
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: about Gary Webb. Gary Webb is a complicated figure in
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I would say just American history kind of absolutely.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're a journalist who kind of has this
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: kind of an impact, then you kind of moved from
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: journalists to historical figure.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a journalist who, just like Bill Cooper, who
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: was the author of Behold a Pale Horse, Gary Webb
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: also once pushed a theory that the American government was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: involved in trafficking drugs. The difference between the two is
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: that maybe sometimes, but for the most part, no one
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: called Gary Webb a conspiracy theorist. No. I mean, I'm.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Sure some people did, but like no, he was a
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: legitimate reporter.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Bill Cooper's theory was that the CIA sales drugs at
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the behest of the Builderberg group as a means of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: population control. I think Gary Webb's theory benefited from being
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: slightly more believable. Sure, yeah, he helps, And there was
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: also all this evidence that he included, and he talked
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: to people about it, right, instead of basing it on
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: his memories of documents he saw in the seventies when
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: he was in the navy, right, Yeah, like.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Just thinking yah sounds right maybe yeah, no, yeah no.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And then like he also has the benefit of the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: CIA almost admitting to the things that he writes about.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. Like, if you look into this
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: story now, you'll still see there's a lot of debate
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: around his reporting methods. And I think the general consensus
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: has become that this story was discredited, and I wildly
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: disagree with that.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think that's a good takeaway at all
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: from this whole incidence.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: There were definitely issues with his reporting.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like people would talk about like he was a
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: very passionate guy who kind of sometimes let that passion
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: get the better of him. Right, But that doesn't discount
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: every single thing that he reported on. It just means
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: that you gotta like it requires nuance to talk about
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: and that's you know, that's tough.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And despite him making some pretty ground breaking claims
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in this story, the mainstream media response was basically, let's
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: get Gary Webb.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wild.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: We'll probably do this in two episodes, and the second
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: episode is going to be about that mainstream media response
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: because I think that's actually the conspiracy.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: It's definitely, yeah, like it's it's its own thing, like
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: or you know, at least like a major part of
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: the Iran contra CIA drug conspiracy.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, the CIA being involved in drug smuggling,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that's kind of old news by now, Like it was
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: almost old news by the time Gary Webb reported on it.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And we'll get to why the response to his was
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: different in a bit. But like you said, eventually everything
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't proven to be true, But no,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: there was some level of vindication here that we didn't
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: pay attention to because Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: tearing over the headlines at the time.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Right, and you know, and again this is stuff that
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about, but like it was vindicated in such
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: a way that it allowed the people who criticized him
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: to maintain their stance, you know what I mean, Like
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: they said they did a lot of stuff like what
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: was reported on, but not specifically that there's a lot
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: of that going on in the response to this.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the basics of Gary Webb's theory was that the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: CIA was collaborating with drug smugglers in Nicaragua in some
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: way to fund the Contras, which were the rebel army
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: that we were funding to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And Gary Webb's theory is that the CIA either knowingly
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: or unknowingly participated in drug trafficking into the United States.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: And the thing about it is one thing I found
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: researching this, and it comes up if you read anything
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: about Gary Webb. This was a thing that had been
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: reported on Yeah a lot before. Absolutely there had been
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: suggestions and allegations that the Contras at the very least
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: were involved in cocaine trafficking way back in the mid eighties.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And that's the part that kind of goes unsaid. If
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the Contras were involved in it, then the CIA was
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: involved in it exactly, Like there's no yeah, I know
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: there's in that. That kind of is what the criticism
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: of Gary Webb's reporting sort of comes down to, is
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: nitpicky shit like that, Well, like, well, they weren't, they
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: didn't work for the CIA, they were CIA operatives and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, well, what fucking difference.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Is that cares. Yeah, they were just paid by the
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: CIA and monitored by the CIA and told what they
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: do by the CIA. But they didn't work, you know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: they didn't were their w two.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Huh, They're not drawing a government pension. If that's what
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you're worried about, isnactly? That was not my concern, but
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: so yeah. The Associated Press published an article about contras
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: smuggling cocaine into the United States in the name of
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: raising money to fight the government of Nicaragua in nineteen
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: eighty five, so eleven years before Gary Webb. The following year,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the San Francisco Examiner published a story about a cocaine
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: seizure and mentioned that a quote, cocaine ring in the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay Area helped finance Nicaragua's Contra rebels. And
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: again that's eighty six. The article mentions that a convicted
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: drug trafficker named Julio Zavala said he supplied five hundred
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars to Costa Rican based contra groups and that
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the majority of it came from cocaine trafficking in the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Bay Area, Miami and New Orleans.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is all very well known. I mean,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: like it's just funny because again, these claims about drug
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: smuggling were kind of singled out as the one to
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: pick on. But I mean, like even earlier that decade,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: we'd had the whole Ran Contra scandal, like the and
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: like that was about the CIAO helping arms deals happened
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: in order to fund the fucking contras. So like, I
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: don't understand how people would go, Well, sure that we
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: know the CIA helped sell guns to fund to come,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: but drugs, come on, now, that's a step too far.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Iran contra scandal is so nuts. There's one
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: moment where a guy was supposed to testify and an
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: hour before he was set to testify, he was rendered
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: incapable of speech. Nothing suspicious about.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Shit, it's just sealed shut like a.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Shellfish talks in That guy crazy.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Rendered unable to speak. That's so Yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: This is again we're talking about the CIA here, and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I know it sounds crazy that they would traffic in drugs,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: but also this is the agency that oversaw America's decades
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: long human experimentation program. Yeah, like, I don't like, was
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: this outside their fucking boundaries.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, I really don't understand how you could think
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: that drugs are beyond the pale for the CIA, Like
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: that's just what is so mind body, like, that's where
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: you go. No, no, no, no, I'm putting my fucking
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: foot out. It wasn't cocaine, like if they were, like
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: if this was a military technic, if this was something
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: that we were doing in the fucking you know it
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: like that we were and we are probably like exporting
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: drugs to other countries and showing that and using that
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: money in order to fund some other military Like, if
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: we were saying it was happening somewhere else, it wouldn't
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: be nearly the controversial subject. I don't think. Yeah, you know,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: like it only makes sense that, of course that they
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: would also do that sort of thing in America.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And back when these articles came out, even then
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the Reagan administration tried really hard to keep that Associated
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Press article from being published, but they failed, and it
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: came out, but no one really cared. There was also
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: a Senate subcommittee headed by John Kerry that was all
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: about investigating drug cartels and money laundering, and among their
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: findings on the contras ties to drug trafficking was this.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Here's a quote payments to drug traffickers by the US
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: State Department of funds authorized by Congress for humanitarian assistance
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to the Contras in some cases after the traffickers had
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: In others, while traffickers were under active investigation by these
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: same agencies. End quote. That part's really important because that
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: is kind of the crux of Gary Webb's story. So
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: you'll see a lot of criticism of his and we'll
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: get into that in more detail in the second episode,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: where people are like, Okay, there's some connections there, but
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: there's certainly nothing that says the CIA willingly started the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: crack epidemic nationwide. And it's like, yeah, because his article
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't say that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, but you know, like you can imply things, but.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: You can imply things. But also his article does say this, like,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: it says pretty much what the Carry investigation came up with,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: which is that, yeah, the CIA wasn't like standing on
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: street corners in South central LA pedaling crack.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that wouldn't be cool though.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So people will know if you go back and read
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: those eighties articles and even the John Kerrey investigation. None
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: of them explicitly say the CIA was involved in drug trafficking,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and they don't mention the CIA explicitly. But when is
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the CIA ever mentioned implicitly? Right, and stuff like this,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Like that's kind of the nature of the CIA. It
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: came up in the Bonus episode we did last week
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: about Ruth Payne.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: They're a secretive organization. I would say, I think that's fair.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they they operate in the shadows for sure, But
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: also do they need to be mentioned again? If we're
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: talking about a rebel army that we were funding, yeah,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to fight communists in Latin America, that's a CIA. Like
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: there's exactly like the NSA doesn't do it. The FBI.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I get that, Like I agree obviously that
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the CIA's involvement is implicit in this, but I will
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: say that is journalistically unsound, like you do, like as
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: a journalist, you do need to provide some of this information,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: not all of it. I like, again, I'm not going
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: to come down on Gary Webb at all, really, and
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I'm definitely not going to come down like the people
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: who went after him did. But you know, like there's
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: there's there's definitely criticisms to be leveled at this world.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Well, one criticism he left himself completely wide open for
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: is if he did ever just call the CIA, as
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: one can do, like they have a public relations office.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: You can call them and be like, do you want
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to comment on this story that's about to run about
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: yours starting the crack epidemic, and l yeah. If he
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: did that, he didn't say, like, he didn't say it
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: it Nowhere in the article is he like, we reached
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: out to the CIA for comments. So a was able
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: immediately to just be like, bitch, didn't even ask.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Why why didn't you ask us? We wouldn't have killed you.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I swear that's the thing.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Like, I understand being reluctant to do that when you're
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: working on a story like this. I get that, Like
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: that makes sense from a human perspective, but it is
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: unfortunate that that leads to these sorts of holes that
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: are easy for critics to use to devalue the entire thing.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And that's not fair.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: So Gary Webb, let's talk about him a little bit.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Before he came to the San Jose Mercury, which is
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the outlet that eventually published The Dark Alliance series. That's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: what his articles about the CIA and drug trafficking were called.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Right before that, he was an investigative reporter. He won
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a bunch of awards. His first investigative work was published
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: in the Cincinnati Post in nineteen eighty seventeen parts series
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: about the murder of a cole executive who had organized crime.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Ties and I want never read that sounds good.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: He won the National Investigative Reporters An Editors Award for
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: reporting from a small town newspaper for that story. I
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, I guess Cincinnati is small, but
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I mean they got Yeah, they got a couple of
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the major sports teams. Not that small they do.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: I guess is that what makes a city a large city?
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: In my opinion one hundred percent, I know, I don't disagree.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Congratulations Green Bay, Wisconsin, You're huge.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Wow, They're in the big leagues.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: They sure are. But he joined the San Jose Mercury
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: News in nineteen eighty eight. In nineteen ninety, he and
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a team of journalist at the paper one a damn
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Pulitzer Yeah, for their coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: But I did leave out he had a stint at
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the Cleveland Plaine Dealer, where he won numerous regional journalism awards,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: but also got the paper successfully sued for defamation over
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a story he wrote twice damn twy scary.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Also, I bet his editors loved him.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Also, it comes up in the movie Kill the Messenger,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: which we'll probably do a bonus episode about. But hell yeah,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: during this period in his life, he cheated on his wife.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: In the woman he cheated with killed her self because
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't believe his wife. Big plot point in that movie. Wow.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: So from there he goes to the San Jose Mercury
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and according to the book Killed a Messenger, which is
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: about the life of Gary Webb and a highly recommended read,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: or just watch the Jeremy Renner movie, which we'll do soon.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Web started researching the CIA crack connection in July nineteen
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: ninety five, so this article when it comes out, it
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: was groundbreaking in quite a few ways, one of them
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: being it was the first major investigative piece like this
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to be published simultaneously in print and on the Internet,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: which meant if you read it online you could actually
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: click on the sources and read like his sources and things.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: So I think that is worth taking into account when
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: people call this article poorly so, which is a criticism
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: that you hear about it a lot. It's like some
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: of the claims were poorly sourced, but there's also links
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: to all of the sources in this so yes and no.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean again, like there are criticisms, Like with
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: most pieces of journalism, there are criticisms you can level at,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: but it's fairly air tight. Not airtight, but you know,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: it's yeah, well sourced, like you said.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And despite it being a massive three part series that
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: also includes like articles within articles, it's pretty easy to
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: summarize what the article was about. Yeah, it kind of
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: says it right in the lead of the first article.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Here's quote for the better part of a decade, a
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay area drug ring sold tons of cocaine
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to the crips and blood Streak gangs of Los Angeles
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: guerrilla army run by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Quote.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And I think what's important to note there is nowhere
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: does he say the CIA intentionally sold drugs in Los Angeles, right,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Like he's just saying a group of drugs. Smugglers with
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: connections to the CIA sold drugs in Los Angeles and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: here's the thing they did.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, that's true. It's and that's a great lead too.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: That's really that's that's all you need for a story
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: like this to start it off, like what a what
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a lead like? And I highly recommend, like, I'm sure
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: we'll link to him. But anybody listening go read the
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: three Dark Alliance stories that we're talking about. They're really
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: interesting reads. Yeah, really well written and well done journalism.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. For all the talk of this
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: story having been discredited, it's never gone away. It is
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: an FX original series.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, I have you watch Snowfall.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I cannot get into it. I watched It's like it's
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: obviously right in my wheelhouse. Yeah, I know. That's why
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why every time I watch it, I'm
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: just like, oh, this is boring.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean sometimes though, like I get that I'm
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: gonna have to fight help it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to fight through. It's been I mean,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: it's got like four seasons now.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it does. It's crazy, yeah, because yeah,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the I think the fifth season just aired.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been going. And as pointed out in Kill
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the Messenger and by Us mere minutes ago, Gary Webb
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was not the first person to report on alleged connections
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: between the CIA and the crack epidemic in America. But
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: what was different is all those other articles kind of
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: ended at, well, this group smuggled drugs into the United
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: States the end. What no one ever talked about was
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: where did the drugs go from there? Yes, and with
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: it be in the eighties, you're going to imagine it's
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: going to like Miami vice parties.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: And sure, like the popular image of cocaine just like
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: and that's the like, that's a big thing that's underlined
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: in this series is that is the main demographic that
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: you were selling cocaine to in the seventies and eighties,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: like in those years. And the thing that changed with
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: this conspiracy was that crack had been invented a few
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: years before, and that made it easy for it to
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: be packaged in a cheap way that could then be
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: sold like other street drugs.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing about it being cooked, I was
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: reading it's in one of the articles that we'll link to,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: but I believe it was Gary Webb who was talking
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to Rick Ross. I might be incorrect about who Rick
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Ross was talking to. But what Rick Ross did that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: no one else had been doing up to that point
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: is he cooked the cocaine into a smokeable form ahead
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of time. Right, That's the thing people had been doing
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: for a long time. And once you cut it up
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: into like that small of an amount and resell it,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: you're gonna make a fucking killing.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly because like you know, you only need a little
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: rock to get high, and so like you can sell
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: it by these such small amounts that they were way
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: more affordable, right.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And the thing is he did that for people, like
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: freebasing has always been a thing. That's how Richard Pryor
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: set himself fire.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's important that these people, like they did
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: not invent crack. This is popularizing it, right.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And kind of mainstreaming it and making it more accessible.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Because Rick Ross was talking about this one particular customer
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: who was like, well, I like to get high before
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: work in the morning, and it's like, who fucking doesn't
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: for one time, and he was like, but I'm in
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: a hurry. I gotta like get up and be responsible,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: make my kids breakfast, and shit, but I also got
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to cook my own cocaine so I can get high
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: in the morning. He's like, you, no, you cook it
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: for me. And then that's when the light bulb went
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: off over Rick Ross's head and he.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Was like, oh shit, Yeah.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: That's how you sell cocaine in black neighborhoods. You make
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it affordable. That's what Cracked did. It made cocaine affordable
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: and black woods, and it just so happens to also
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: be a highly, highly addictive version of cocaine.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Right, extremely addictive, extremely potent, and cheap.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: You ever smoke for that? I have not. No, it's
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: pretty good.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: It's pretty good. I've heard I've heard good things.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thing, I wrote a Cracked article about it.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I think I read that.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Not the kind of thing I'd recommend doing on consecutive
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: days or at all. Right, but yes, if you do it, well,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: make sure you really don't go back to that well
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the next day because you're going to be there for
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: a while.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: If you do, yeah, try it once, but I'm not
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: gonna It's not one you know that I'll seek out. Ever,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It's like if it's offered to be made, it feels
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: like if it's offered to me though that might not
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: be a situation where I want to smoke crack, but yeah, no,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: like it's interesting. And then because the big thing is
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: that Rick Ross has this idea and starts, you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: making crack first and then selling it and but runs
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: into the problem quickly that cocaine is very expensive to
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: buy and he needed a way to get it cheaply.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Enter some pesky Nicaraguan rebels. Yes, and the CIA, and
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: that's kind of the connection there.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The series Dark Alliance focuses on three men Freeway,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Rick Ross, not the rapper, No, the guy that former
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: corrections officer Rapper stole from.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: A Yeah, I who sued the rapper because he used
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: his name and then it got dismissed.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, Freeway, Rick Cross, Oscar Danilo Blanden in Norwin Menaces.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Is it Blanding or bland You're.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Right, it's Blandon.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know that's what it is.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I just didn't I didn't figure out how to type
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the O with the accent over it when I was doing.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, we're Americans, we could say bland.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Oscar, Dana Loe, Blandon.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: It's it's like Brandon with an.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: L Yeah exactly. I think it means Brandon in.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: So Rick Ross was an L, a drug dealer, as
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: we've mentioned a whole bunch, and Blandon and Menaces were
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Nicaraguan drug smugglers. In the first article in the series
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: mostly covered the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Blanding In Menaces and how a lot of that had
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to do with their connections to the CIA in the contrast,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and that ends up being the part when the mainstream
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: media gets to pick in this story apart. They just
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: completely ignore that because that happened, Like, that's the thing.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: When the CIA report comes out later, Like at so
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: many points throughout history, people have commented on Dark Alliance
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: and they're always like, well, the CIA didn't start the
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: crack epidemic. They just knew what was happening and didn't
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: do anything.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's like funded it.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, that's also very bad.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: But no one cared about that part. No, like, at
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: least not the outlets that end up murdering Gary Webb
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: over this.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like that's the thing. And again, this
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: is what we're going to really dig into in the
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: second episode, here, but like it really is that they
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: just focus so hard on him, and even like at
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: least one of the reporters who worked for the La
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Times like commented on it a few years later where
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: they were He was like, yeah, no, we we really
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: went we got real focused on him, and no one
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: reported about the actual allegations.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the mainstream media in this case did exactly
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: what the government wanted them to do. Yeah, Like to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the letter, it's scary and that's why I think that
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: is the conspiracy here. I don't sure. It doesn't really
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: seem like a question anymore as the web of the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: CIA did. What Gary Webb said, it's definitely not. And
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: like Rick Ross went to prison for what he did.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: We know, Rick Ross sold crack.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, he went to prison for a while and now
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: is like an author and like motivational speaker kind of guy. Yeah, which, okay,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know that I would necessarily want to get
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: motivated by freeway Rick Ross, but like whatever, Han's got
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: to make a living, I guess.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the motivational circuit is a weird place to go
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: after having such a devastating impact on humanity. Yeah, like
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: just on the world exactly general man, Yeah.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: It seems weird, but then again, like, uh oh wow,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna blank on. Uh is they butt the fucking
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Wolf of Wall Street. Guy, that's how that movie ends.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: That's that's one of the best parts of that movie
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: because it ends with him doing the fucking motivational Speakers
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: circuit even though he's a fucking asshole like monster and lunatic.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the second article in the series was all
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: about something you just mentioned that Rick Ross needed not
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: just a ton of cocaine, but he needed it cheap,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and that these two are where he got that cocaine
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: connect right.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Because they wanted to get rid. They had a bunch
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: of cocaine and they needed money in order to send
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: back to their fucking commy hating friends back in Nicaragua,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: their fucking asshole right wing contra motherfuckers. Yeah, and that
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: and these guys were total fucking middle class assholes. Like
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: that was the thing that really jumped out at me.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: One of the things. A lot of stuff really jumps
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: out of you reading these articles. But like they talk
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: about how Blendon and manessas or minises sorry I don't
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: speak Spanish, how they are like small business owners and
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: shit and like like one, I think one of them
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: worked in real estate or something in in Nicaragua. Yeah,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: and then you know it was housted by the sandiniss.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I wonder why.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: I wonder what his business practices were, Like, yeah.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: There's a quote from one of them where they were
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: just like, we wanted the communists out of our government. Yeah,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: one of their.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Very straightforward about their goals.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they like they were absolutely selling these drugs
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to fund the contrast, Like, again, the only question is
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: how much the CIA knew exactly, not whether it happened,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: it's just how much did they know? And it's like, right,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: it's the CIA, they know everything.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: And then it's like, well, why don't we ask these
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: guys what they know is? And CI is like, you
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: can't ask those guys. They're they're part of an active investigation.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, what's that active investigation about? I would
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: love to know, And they're like, no comments, So you know,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: and then you know the problem is that then the
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: media people will go, well, Okay, then I guess there's
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: no connection. End of discussion.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The third article in the series, and again this
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: is really where Gary Webb's reporting starts deviating from the
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: previous reporting on this issue. Again he talked about where
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the drugs went. So this third article was all about
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: out the social impact of the crack epidemic on communities
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of color, especially black people. And not just that, but
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: even back then, we were talking about the disparity and
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the punishment between black people and literally anyone else getting
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: arrested for cocaine. Even in this case, like Rick Ross
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: got arrested and then he went to prison and got out.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: And then Danilo Blandon, who ended up becoming like a
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: paid informant for the rest of his life and he
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: got like permanent residents in the United States, he ends
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: up setting Rick Ross up again and getting him sent
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: back to prison.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was so wild. But also, come on, Rick, Jesus,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: you're gonna deal with this motherfucker again. Come on.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you hear that Nicaraguan drug smugglers, you're right, like,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it's not what you're picturing.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: No, no, exactly, No, it's not dude, dude, it's not
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: dudes with gold chains and fucking you know, uzzis and
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: speedboats and shit. It's these goddamn middle aged, like, you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: upper middle class douchebags who are trying to protect their
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: comfortable way of life. Basically, yeah, and fuck that that sucks.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: It does.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it destroyed people and like this was these
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: articles became you know, obviously made a huge impact in
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: especially the south central communities, like in Los Angeles communities,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: like made really big waves for something that you know,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: seems like it might have been isolated to the San
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Jose region Bay area. It really made an impact because
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: of the Internet. Partially.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Internet's a pretty important player in this story
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: because these articles, even though they were mostly ignored by
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the mainstream media at first. Yeah, black media, they did
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: not ignore this, No, No, it turned a few heads,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: it started protests, It was news for months, and a
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: lot of that had to do with the fact that
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: it could be spread on the Internet. It'll come up
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: again on the second episode. But in one of these
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: fucking response articles to Dark Alliance, the Washington Post, I
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: think it was, they coupled their article with another article
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: about why black people are so susceptible to falling for
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, and it's like, you motherfuck us.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that I knew about.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Condescending bullshit right there.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: God, because like the Washington Post and you know, this
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: is stuff we'll get into more detail later, but like
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: the Washington Post was the first outlet right that published
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: a thing about it, And that's weird in and of itself,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: because again, the Sin Jose Mercury News is, as it
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: the name of it suggest is a fairly small region.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it's a very large daily newspaper
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: by daily newspaper standards, but it still is mostly confined
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: to the Bay Area region that people buy it. And
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: the fact that it's getting tag teamed by the Washington
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Post with multiple pieces of coverage is just out of control.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: And then the La Times jumps in.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the way they covered it because not a
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: single one of them looked into any of the actual
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: allegations that they were. That's just looking for holes in
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: his reporting.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Which like whatever, Like if I understand wanting to make
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: sure that the journalistic process is defended or whatever, like
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: I get that, but like you also should like it
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: is also I would say, journalistic malpractice to not investigate
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: be subject of the thing that you're critiquing in your critique,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like that just seems like
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: you're completely missing a major part, Like what's your rebuttal
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: if it's not what he's saying, if you're nitpicking so
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: hard what you're reasoning. Yeah, and it's because they're getting
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: paid by the CIA to take it down.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Well that's the thing. Like we'll get into it more
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: on the second episode, but the CIA at one point,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: just commenting on this in an internal like publication of THEIRS,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: they were like, man, it's a good thing we had
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: all those relationships in place with all those media outlets
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: when this happened, because we got some of them to
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: just kill the story without even reporting on it. And
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: it's like, that is one of the most disheartening things
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a person could read, because it's a thing. Again, we
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned it on this podcast before Project Mockingbird. Carl
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Bernstein wrote a really great Rolling Stone article about it
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy eight. That was the CI going out
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to journalists and being like, Hey, will you tell the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: stories that we want you to tell, and we'll fucking
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: give you like Super Bowl tickets or get you some
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: sex or something like whatever you want. Yeah, And so
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: many people are gonna say, yes.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Sure, I get it. I'll take some sex. I mean, I'm.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Married, but I'm fucking with them super Bowl tickets if
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: they yeah, exactly, Like it's like a small enough country
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: that needs their government toppled. Like what kind of tickets
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: are we talking? Am I like nose bleeds? Am I
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: in a box with ash dicature?
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Oh no, you're gonna topple Luxembourg? Oh no, Oh I
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: guess that's fine. I'll go to the Bahamas.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's okay, great. So yeah, these articles, of course,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: lead to a huge wave of protests among especially black communities.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: This is a quote from Carl T Rowan, who is
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a syndicated columnist. If this is true, then millions of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: black lives have been ruined in America's jails and prisons
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: are now clogged with young African Americans because of a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: cynical plot by a CIA that historically has operated in
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: contempt of the law. And yep, that is correct, yes, true.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: And the problem is, like, especially with that Washington Post
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: shit about why black people are more susceptible to conspiracy theories,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the mainstream media really did turn this, like without saying it,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: they turned this into a thing that was like, well,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: black people worry about that, Like that's not your concern,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: that's conspiracy theory bullshit, Like, right, the government's not doing
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: anything to you.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, what what's next? Yeah, like a mad
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: scientist created white people in his image in Africa? Yeah, sure,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: sure buddy, Yeah, the CIA is selling drugs. Absolutely.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: At one point, Maxine Waters, who represented a district in
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: LA that included south central LA, where most of the
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: story happened, she called into a talk radio show, which,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: again among African American media outlets, this was a huge
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: fucking story for obvious reasons. She called into one of
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: those shows and said that the Congressional Black Caucus was
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: going to take up this issue at their next meeting.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: They were expecting like two hundred people to show up.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Two thousand people showed up. So again like, yeah, this
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: is the kind of thing the government in the mainstream
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: media would conspire over. Absolutely sure.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And Maxine Waters, Yeah, it should be said she
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: was a huge supporter of Gary Webb, yes, for his
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: entire life and after his life rip. So she's always
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: been kind of spearheading this one because her district is
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: largely the one that was the most infected by it.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it got to be such a thing that the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: CIA director at the time, a guy named John. There
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: is video of this, and it is fascinating because you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: mostly because I don't know that I've ever seen the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: CIA do something like this. But he went to a
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: community meeting in watts and like took questions from the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: community and let me tell you, it is awword And
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: he was no longer CIA director a month later.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: A month Oh wow.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he made it a while. But I.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Kind of want to see that, and I kind of
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: never want to see that. That sounds excruciating.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: It feels like a trap. Yeah, Like it feels like, hey,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: are you mad about the CIA selling crack in your community?
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: How about you all gather in this one building and
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: come talk to the CIA about it.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Why don't you say it to our face?
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Here, take this commemorative coin home with you. Keep it
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: on you at all times, please.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: So yeah, they like the government and the media both
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: really end up going to the mat to try and
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: put this story down.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they do.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: And then yeah they did.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Right or wrong and and you know, and you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I'm sure, well there's something else that we'll get into more.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: But you know, then Gary Webb quote unquote killed himself.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well twice on the next episode. Yeah, we're gonna
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: get into that mainstream media response and just to give you,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: like I guess some some previews. It's bad. Yes, the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: paper of record. Is that what The New York Times
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: calls itself.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Sure, yes, I think.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: They fucking failed us. They like, I'm not one of
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: those the mainstream media is the enemy of the people,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: but in this case they were.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like they are a tool that can
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: be manipulated like anything else. Yeah, that's my main outlook
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: on them. But like, this is egregious, Like if you
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: read about it, you know, again, like even if you're like, sure,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: there are some valid points to be made about the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: quality of the of the investigation that was made, this
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: is still an insane overkill of a response.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: And the problem that you see a lot with it.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I'll go through my one favorite example before we dive
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: into it in detail on the next episode. One thing
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: you saw is these outlets that start attacking Gary Webb
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: also start doing the same things they're accusing him of
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: right in their effort to make their point. The one
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: that stood out to me when I was researching this
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: is La Times writer Jesse Katz. Yes, his main point
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: of contention in criticizing Gary Webb. Was Gary Webb said
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Rick Ross was a huge cocaine dealer, and jesse Katz said,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: nuh uh, there were bigger cocaine And it's like, okay,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: but was he selling cocaine for the CIA? Was he?
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Did he make a lot of money selling crack or
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: did he not? Was his name Freeway Rick Ross?
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Like you know, come on, man, And the thing is
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: he criticizes Gary Webb for overstating how big of a
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: drug dealer Rick Ross was. But in nineteen ninety four,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: jesse Katz wrote this about Rick Ross. If there was
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: an eye to the storm, if there was a criminal
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: mastermind behind cracks decade long rain, if there was.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: One outlaw capitalist most responsible for flood in Los Angeles
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: streets with mass marketed cocaine, his name.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Was Freeway Rick Ross.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: Rick and Donel Ross did more than anyone else to
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: democratize craft, boosting volume, slashing prices, and spreading disease on
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: a scale never before conceived. And oh and that motherfucker
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: two years later, when Gary Webb writes this article is like,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: nuh uh, Cross.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Wasn't that big?
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: I did not know it was.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: And it's like, well, then were you just lying?
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did not know there you would have that
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: exact of a of a hypocritical point that was so
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: that was so exact to his criticism. Yeah, and it's
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: it's but it is interesting because Katz is one of
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: the people from the La Times who eventually is like, yeah,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: we were kind of going crazy on that. I don't
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: know what was going on.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: As evidenced by that right there.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. He kind of is. He's one of the
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: guys who has actually like renounced a lot. You know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: it's not renounced, but at least like been remorseful about
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: his role.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, you should be. You killed this guy.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: The response to this article is what killed Gary Webb?
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: I actually against all odds, and I know I've said
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the opposite on this podcast before. I do think Gary
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Webb killed himself.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Oh you do?
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: For one thing, all of his family, all of his
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: friends are like, yeah, I mean, that's killed himself. And
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the thing is, it seems way late in the game
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: for the government to kill him out of retaliation. They
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: had already destroyed this dude. The day he died, he
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: was about to move into his mom's house because he
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't afford his mortgage anymore, Like he never got another
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: job with a major newspaper, like it really he lost
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: his family over it, like it ruined his life. And yeah,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: it's it's weird that he shot himself twice in the head.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: That's the thing.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: But the first bullet went through his cheek, like it
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: went in and out. And granted, it seems crazy that
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: you would like wake up from that and be like, oh,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I fucked up. Let me try again.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: It's no way you're going going out and then waking
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: back up. It's a it has to had to have
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: been immediate. Surely, it's like, oh no, like, oh, I yeah,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: that's just a scenario, that is that's a very horrific
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: scenario to imagine. I just I mean, and look, it's
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: like the coroner said, it's not unheard of for there
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: to for someone to have killed themselves by being shot twice.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: But like it's just weird. It's very considering considering his career.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: It's just weird. It's a weird capper. Yeah, I guess
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: that story.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I guess. I don't know what he was working on
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: at the time. He might have been on some other
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: crazy ass story. So like, I mean, don't get me wrong,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: there's perfect there's perfectly fine chance. Yes, if you told
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: me the government kills literally everyone who dies, I'd be like, yeah,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: all right, I always kind of suspected it. It's good
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to have confirmation. Thank you, mister or whoever that would
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: come from.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean for sure, Look, look, yeah, we'll never know.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: And this is stuff we'll definitely talk about a lot
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: as we talk about his media fallout. But I would
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: definitely understand a suicide. His life had been ruined. But sure,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: you know, two bullets, It's just one of those things.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: What if he did it on purpose as like the
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: ultimate troll.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Move back, He's like, would be funny.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: He's like, oh, I definitely want to die, but I
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: could really make it have some fun if people thought
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: that the CIA murdered me.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: It's possible. There is an internet video of a guy
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: who just like shoots himself in the cheek just to
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: see if it's a thing he could do, and he did.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: He shot himself and cheeking the bullet.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Just yeah, I mean absolutely, if your mouth is I mean,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: and if your mouth is open, you'll basically just get
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: two holes in your mouth, in your face, which sucks.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: That is the theory I want to believe when it
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: comes to Gary Webb's death.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: That yeah, yeah, it was a joke.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: He did unfortunately kill himself, but he also trolled the
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: CIA at the end, right, I mean, hey.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: I would love it. I would love to see it.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we'll get into Gary Webb's death a little
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: more in his life after the Dark Alliance series on
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the next episode, where we will also dig into the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: batshit insane media response to this story. The New York
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Times assembled a team of seventeen reporters just to pick
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: apart Gary Webb's reporting. They wrote more words about his
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: reporting than he wrote about the CIA selling fucking in
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the United States. That is shameful, yes.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: And like the end, you know, again, we'll get into it.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Like the LA Times basically their entire fucking department was
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: focused on Gary Webb for a time.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: And like, I sort of understand the LA Times being
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: agro about it because this is them getting scooped on
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: a story that happened in oh yeah, their city.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: That is like I understand, like I said, and again, well,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: this is stuff we'll get into, but I understand wanting
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: to be rigorous in your investigation of a claim like this,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: like you want to be as intellectually rigorous to make
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: sure everything is as airtight as possible. But then it's
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: just too much.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it ends up ruining Gary Webb's life. Yep,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: very much so. But he did win an award for this.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Well, that's good, he'll have that.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Then there was a lot of debate as to whether
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: to still give it to him because of the fallout
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: over this, but.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: He was and remains controversial.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah. On the next episode, we'll delve into
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the mainstream media response to Yes. The regular O media
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: was appropriately upset concerned for the most part, again, communities
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: of color very upset. Dick Gregory got arrested outside the
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: CIA for protesting when this happened. So it wasn't that
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: no one cared. It was just that the people we
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: needed to care didn't care, yam. And that is what
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about on the next free episode. We'll we'll
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: do a bonus episode in between. Maybe should we cover
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Kill the Messenger in between?
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, be sure, I down, I definitely want to
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: cover that.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: It's uh, I've watched it. It's a good movie. It's
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: a good Jeremy Renner movie. There you go, Jeremy Renner
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: as Gary Webb. It's believable.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: I could see that. I mean, he doesn't look anything
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: like him, but.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: That is what he's got, a small town journalist.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Face he does like and look, Jerry Renner has had
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: his problems in the past. He certainly seems like a
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: weird dude. But he's a good actor. I like him.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I like watching him act. I like watching him. He's
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: great in like The hurt Locker and things like that.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: So yeah, he's good in it. And there's also a
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: weird amount of strange stuff around that movie itself, especially
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the promotion of it. Okay, like when it comes out,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: the studio that made it did not promote it at all. Yeah,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: like to the point that it seemed like they were
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: not wanting people to know it had been made.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Sure, I mean that might be the case. It might
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: also be one of the yeah it didn't it might not.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: They might have known that it didn't have a lot
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: of broad commercial appeal, which is fine, like, not every
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: movie needs to have.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Majorsual appeal, but a hell cast and by that I
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: mean it also has Mary Elizabeth Winstead in it.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, well this thing, this thing sounds great. We
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: definitely got to cover it.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I love her, I love her so much, so yeah,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: maybe we'll cover that on the next bonus episode and
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: then we'll finish because they they get into the media
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: response but not in the same detail. And also it's
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: a movie, so like the facts are out of order
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and things like that. But yeah, so yeah, we're gonna
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: be talking about Gary Webb next couple episodes. Yep. Until then,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: do we have anything to plug before we get out
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: of here?
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Going back our Lost Rewatch podcast, it's it's on the roll.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I think we just the first episode just drop yep,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: and we got the second one coming. So if you
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: want to hop on the Conspiracy to Show patreon and
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: check it out.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's available on the patreon or if you subscribe
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: to bonus episodes through the Spotify app. I also dropped
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: the first episode in there so you can hear it
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: there and you'll be able to hear those before they
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: are free to the public, one of your perks as
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: a subscriber, you lucky bastards.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Wow wow, I'm jealous.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Walk outside, look up at the sky and say thank
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: you exactly because you get to hear going back before
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: anyone else except any other people who subscribe, which is
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: a considerable number of people.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: There's other people. It's good. I'm happy about it, and
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: like I'm loving I love that, I'm loving watching loss.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: That's been fun, and I'm loving talking about it takes
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: me back.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: So yeah, good times. Yeah all right, and uh yeah,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: I'm doing a live Unpopular Opinion podcast in New York
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: City August twenty eighth, at Sunday, four pm early. Come out,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: watch me spu some unpopular opinions and then you know,
• 53:32
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• 53:34
  Speaker 1: out and party, have fun, enjoy the city.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Join your friends, have a nice time a.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Very early evening with the un pops podcast network. Baby.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Tickets for that are available at un pops dot co,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: slash NYC or on the caveat NYC website. And that's
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: all I got for now. Let's get the fuck out
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: of here, Olivia say goodbye bye, goodbye, everybody. We love you.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: People of Earth.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Your planets have to be destroyed, Your plans have to
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: be destroyed.